Two decades have passed since María Corina Machado became known to the whole world. Venezuelan politics was the scourge of Chavismo, which was the first to call it a dictatorship, one of the few who told the powerful Hugo Chávez what he thought. It was driving him crazy. “You called me a thief,” the Bolivian leader scolded him, completely beside himself. Machado was considered an iron lady who represented the radical wing and defended the toughest confrontation. He dreamed of blowing up Chavismo. There is still something left of the politician, who is 20 years her junior, but she is no longer the one to whom hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans capitulated. The Machado, who won more than 90% of the vote in the opposition primaries this Sunday, speaks of having defeated Chavismo, but through the ballot box and with the help of God instead of that of the US Army, with the power of pain , being a mother separated from her three children, like so many in this Venezuela of young exiles.
The 55-year-old industrial engineer had never come to terms with a country that was further to the left of her postulates. Her character found support in the upper class, to which her family has always belonged, and in the diaspora, but in recent months she has become the closest thing to a people’s princess. His character’s connection to the Venezuelans was not foreseeable, but it suddenly ended the hopelessness that had prevailed for years in a society more concerned with surviving the daily grind of economic crisis than with defeating Chavismo. The opposition’s failed strategies in recent years did not affect Machado, who had long since distanced himself from almost all of his decisions, so it was not difficult for him to renew his name and message.
Thousands of people responded to his call from all parts of the country, from the richest to the poor, even from Chavismo electoral districts. Also abroad, where 7.7 million Venezuelans have emigrated in recent years. The disillusionment with the government and an opposition that had caused confusion through its great vacillation encouraged this woman with clear ideas who sought a complete turnaround in the country’s economy, while coming into contact with the pain of so many broken families very strong message: She is also a mother who misses her children but who has chosen to stay in Venezuela to fight to leave a better country for herself and others.
Chavismo tried to undermine the growth of an inconvenient figure by announcing last June that he would no longer be allowed to hold public office for 15 years, a legal ploy that was internationally denounced and that restricted his candidacy within and outside the country for the Primaries revitalized, but now it could be a brake on their electoral ambitions. Agreements signed in Barbados last week between the government and the opposition agreed to admit “all candidates and political parties,” but Chavismo has kept this possibility away from Machado. She, whose popularity ratings are much higher than Maduro’s, could seriously jeopardize Chavismo’s continued hold on power if elections are held with all democratic guarantees.
First of all, this is their next horizon to subjugate the government. Machado defines herself and her party Vente Venezuela as “liberal” politically, economically and programmatically. His political vision revolves around reducing government as a provider of public policy, introducing new opportunities for entrepreneurship, and promoting the free market to create wealth and jobs. His vision of government is Manchesterist and not much different from what Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan or, in Latin America, Sebastián Piñera might have had. She looks at herself in these mirrors. “Margaret Thatcher had the courage throughout her life to defend her values against everything that opposed her,” she tweeted in 2013, perhaps in reference to herself, who still had a decade of neglect from Chavismo and the opposition ahead of her . before this victory.
Machado joins the new political current of profiles that do not want to be labeled ideologically, especially after gathering such diverse opponents under his name. “If it is a left-wing idea that eradicating poverty is a task for the entire society, then I am a left-wing one. If belief in personal freedom, in investment, in productivity is a right-wing issue, then I am right-wing,” she said in 2012. She takes a tolerant and flexible stance on issues such as abortion, which she wants to open up to the country leading the debate on the decriminalization of rape and the use of medical marijuana and defends gay marriage. Although she is a woman who presents herself as a believer, she denies that her faith is reflected in her political actions.
The opposition candidate has proposed privatizing the public company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), a taboo for local politics, and returning to their owners all the companies expropriated by Chavismo, including Siderúrgica Venezolana, which was his (deceased) father’s company this year). President of the Executive Committee. Machado wants to deregulate controls, promises to punish corruption and push for a general amnesty for political prisoners, promote external growth and reestablish contact with multilateral organizations.
With the influence of economists such as Ludwig Von Mises or Milton Friedman, he has an interpretation of local politics to the right of the traditional parties of Venezuelan democracy before Chavismo. A more American than European vision of the distribution of social resources to create wealth and a deeply anti-communist discourse. Instead of the traditional social democratic support state of the 20th century, Machado proposes the reduction of welfare and the construction of a society without crutches in order to end the burden of the oil state in the lives of the population, thereby taking up an idea very present Venezuelan thinkers on which he relies often refers, such as the writer Arturo Uslar Pietri and the liberal intellectual Carlos Rangel.
Her attacks on chavismo and her enmity with much of the opposition have made her a lone politician who now has the duty to unite all those who want change and who, according to mobilization, are in the majority in the primaries and popularity polls. . Machado is sure that Chavista bases and opponents of all spectrums will walk alongside her today and surrender to her figure. His path to the presidential elections will depend on this popular support, the not always secure coalition of all opposition parties and the pressure that Washington is putting on Caracas, where he will have to get rid of the disqualification imposed by Chavismo if he wants To to run in 2024.
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